Episode 35: Facade
by grandvizier527
Summary: Masks are beginning to come off, and the Titan crew is at risk for being exposed for who-and what-they truly are. And they actually want it that way. Modula, on the other hand, is becoming shadier than ever.
1. Chapter 1

Facade

K+

The Lunises had just returned that night from dinner with Kristin's family. "They were so nice!" Ilana remarked as they filed through the doorway.

"Yeah, her parents are nothing like her," Lance agreed. "Nothing like her at all. I thought they'd be aloof and relaxed, but…I guess not." He was hoping the others wouldn't see the glum look on his face.

"Two working parents that have long shifts and a daughter they have likely had many concerns for don't have the luxury of being so 'chill' like you prefer Kristin to be," Octus remarked with a wink. Lance sighed and shifted his gaze to the floor.

"I didn't say 'chill', I said 'aloof'," he insisted. With a smile, he added, "It'll be a cold day on Sirius when start using Earth slang!"

Ilana held back a chuckle. "Well, we all had fun and the mission wasn't compromised, so I'd call it a success!" she declared. "Now we just have to get Jason to have us all over soon." Lance groaned.

"I've already had one gathering, I don't have room for another!" Lance protested. Ilana rolled her eyes and bounded up the stairs, looking at Octus with a "What are we going to do with him?" look. The robot understood.

"Something wrong, Lance?" Octus asked. "You seemed to enjoy yourself earlier."

"Yeah, I did," he replied. "The food was good and we were able to talk. But her parents were like strangers to me. She never introduced me to them. In fact, up until now she seemed to not want to. And then after everything that happened with Neil, she changed. She doesn't have anything to hide anymore, I guess. Not like we do. Not like what we want to do. I was…kind of jealous. She could be free. And happy, with a loving mom and…Dad."

Octus decided not to respond due to not knowing what to say. Lance's father could be contacted, so why did Lance feel like Edward was still "gone"? Was it because he was not physically present?

Suddenly, he received a transmission with a familiar source signal. There was no message, just a request for his presence on G3's airship. Perhaps this was just the impromptu summons he needed.

"Could you get Ilana back down here?" Octus asked. "We still have one more place to visit tonight."

. . . . .

"Great, another gathering," Lance muttered under his breath. He and Ilana were waiting for Ranaron to arrive. Edward and Solomon were already with them.

"Ranaron's knowledge of various Mutradi languages was very helpful with translating the documents," Solomon explained. "It would have taken us much longer without him, and there's no telling what sort of mistakes we could have made." Edward and Ranaron were walking in together, with Edward using Ranaron's arm for support along with cane.

"How long are you going to be limping?" Lance asked his father. Edward shrugged.

"It might be a while, son," he admitted. "That explosion crippled me, and I'm still convinced Modula intended me to be launched from the Rift Gate right into that target practice spot just to hope I'd be blown to bits. I guess that makes me the first indirect casualty of the war he started." Lance went over to give his father a hug and snatched the documents from Ranaron, who held two copies in his other hand for himself and Ilana to pore over if they wished.

"Your father is still a very valuable member of G3," Ranaron added to Lance, whom he could tell was a bit out of sorts. "And I've only been here for a few weeks!"

"Thank you so much, Ranaron," Ilana said as Lance gave her a copy. "Having Octus just project these from his body would take too long to read through, and while he's many things, he's no printer!"

"I think I might be able to install that if I just had some samples of the various ports in Earth computers," Edward suggested.

"With all due respect, Edward, I'm starting to get some suspicious looks every time I have to run by Best Buy. I can't run your errand right now!" Solomon replied. Everyone shared a laugh, even Ranaron, who wasn't quite sure what a Best Buy was but could infer what it sold.

"Well, thanks again! We have to get going, though. School's tomorrow!" Ilana said, turning on her armor and heading out to one of G3's hangars with Octus so they could return home.

"Aren't you going, Lance?" Edward asked. "Do you wish to stay a little while longer?"

"Yeah," Lance replied curtly. "And I want everybody else out of the room, too."

"Is it really so important that we have to leave? Edward's going to be needed around here," Solomon pointed out.

"Yes, this is _personal,_ Solomon. I can't have you or the frog or anybody else get in my way. Tell Ilana and Octus I'll be catching up."

. . . . .

Modula's unofficial home had changed greatly since Ranaron had left. The floors were never cleaned, and food had never been served, leaving Modula to tend to the palace. The Mutradi guarding the place had taken to using the various rooms as barracks, all sleeping in piles or fighting like barbarians for the available beds, not wanting to share. Food was plentiful thanks to the various supplies being brought in from Mutrad and the Galalunans around that were forced to work without pay to prepare it, but the remains tended to get discarded around the palace hallways. Thanks to the sparse lighting, it wasn't uncommon for someone to trip over the bones of some Mutradi game animal, and this tended to fuel rumors among the Mutradi that there were some human bones mixed in from people Modula had killed.

The General himself was in his private room, the bedroom that had belonged to the king and now served as his. He was poring over maps illuminated just by a few candles, trying to discern a battle strategy.

 _I've got to do something about all of those underground holdouts. Bombardment clearly isn't enough, and the air force is getting restless. What about the supply lines? Have I cut them off? Are all the cities secured from siege? That one raid on that village was unforgiveable. If word gets out to the pathetic people—the humans—around here that the Royalists stand a chance, they'll rise up and rebel! In fact, how do I not know that they haven't done so already?!_

He tended to forego eating and sleeping until it was brought to his attention by other turncoat Galalunans.

"General," called an officer knocking at the door. "It's time for dinner. Also, Private Litvut Helmas has been requesting a plunger for his room. His toilet is clogged, you see, and—" The officer winced at the sound of Modula's loud footsteps marching over to the door to open it.

"Can't you see that I'm _busy?!"_ He snapped. "There are many, many war strategies to consider and many things I've had to discuss with my subordinates. But just when I get alone time, you come in to issue me some petty things—orders, practically. Who do you think you are? If you were more like the Mutradi and saw just what I was doing on behalf of _both_ of our planets you'd retract your requests immediately!"

With a gulp, the officer replied: "W-with all due respect, General, you might wish to consider a change of…scenery. You've been cooped up in here too long, too content for the war to just end itself. Nothing around here will change unless we, you know, mix things up." At his words, Modula paused for a moment before giving a wicked grin.

"That's actually not a bad idea. Not a bad idea at all. I think a few changes are in order." Modula stood up from his desk—formerly the king's—took his maps and candle and headed out the room into the hallway, knocking on all of the doors. "Your General wishes to see you in the throneroom at once!" he shouted for as long as he was able to from outside the rooms.

When all of the Mutradi and Galalunans in the palace had assembled, Modula announced his plan.

"Some officer just gave me a simple, yet _brilliant_ idea," Modula explained. "A change of pace is in order. Every Mutradi here, as well as a few Galalunans whom I am certain I can trust, are going off to the front with me!" Cheers erupted from the Mutradi who were eager to see some action, which tended to be the Nephilimites and other more brutish species.

"Indeed. Brilliant, is it not?" Modula said. "I've wasted too much time trying to destroy Titan directly. So I'm going to destroy it indirectly and have us go and destroy the pathetic life-forms of this planet directly!" This brought more cheers from the Mutradi and nervous looks from the other Galalunan traitors.

"Lieutenant Baron!" Modula called out into the crowd. "You will accompany me on this mission! And whoever it was that suggested this idea—"

"That would be me, sir! Major Palius!" the Galalunan man who had started this whole thing answered.

"You'll be taking care of the place while I'm gone!" Modula announced, leading to snickers and laughter from everyone else in the room.

Later, as the group prepared to head out, Baron approached Modula. "If I may be so bold, General, what exactly are you going to use to attack Titan indirectly?"

"A very good question, Baron," Modula said. "I've already gotten my scientists on Mutrad to produce some very…devastating parasites to handle that problem, or at the very least slow Titan down. And they'll be making a very grand arrival. Remember that statue I commissioned to be built in my honor? The one I believe is approximate to Titan itself in size?"

"Yeah…what was the point of that, General?" Baron asked. Modula chuckled.

"It's just an innocent mask, hiding the real threat. You're smart to question why."

 **AN: Hello, all who still care about all this! College has been ok, but I haven't forgotten about my beloved fanfics! Nothing must go unfinished, not even this whole series!**


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Lance sat across from Edward in silence in his private room. He remembered how their last meeting here had been happy and unexpected; this one was arranged and much more somber. He wondered if these sorts of meetings had come to define his life.

 _But for the first time, I'm doing it on my terms._

"What's this all about?" His father asked.

"You worked a lot," he began, sitting upright so that he had to look down at his father to see his face. He noticed that even if Edward could stand perfectly upright, Lance would still be taller.

"Pretty much every day of the week, Mom cared for me for as a baby. But then she left, and I had no one." Edward sighed, shifting his eyes downward to the floor. Suddenly, he darted his head, turning to face Lance again more sternly.

"That wasn't my fault," he protested. "Things just…I had so many priorities and she felt like she wasn't one of them. So…we split up. And I thought it was for the best, at the time."

"So, she was not a major priority, eh?" Lance almost wanted to smile from the bitter irony of it all. A mother—worthless in the eyes of science!

"I'm sorry, Lance. I never knew how much I had hurt you. I'm sorry you didn't get to have a real mother. I guess I should have remarried. She just wasn't very forgiving and couldn't tolerate flaws in other people. She couldn't understand why I had to keep working like I did."

"Let me guess, 'scientific progress'?" Lance asked with a sneer.

"I was paving the way for a better life for all Galalunans!" Edward protested, his voice wavering mid-sentence. Lance shut his eyes in irritation. It was appalling for him to try and excuse himself with emotional rhetoric. That sort of thing might sway Ilana, but not him.

"Yeah, a better life. For everyone except us," Lance corrected. He dug his fingers into the arms of the chair he sat in, straining a bit to hold back his anger. "You never came back home until 2 AM, ready to tell me what _you_ were doing, whatever _you_ wanted to talk about. My life apart from you didn't matter. So I did nothing. No friends. No fun. No time to ask you if I could."

Edward's lip quivered, and his eyes watered. Lance was glad to be getting somewhere, but he wasn't done yet.

"Then…then I died," Edward said. "You told me you went to the Academy. Met a boy named Arthur, and another named Baron." Lance nodded.

"Baron was cruel," he said. "I had to learn self-reliance. I couldn't count on anyone to help me but myself. I had nothing to live for other than my own survival. So I just kept going, hoping that the training would wear me out."

Lance took a deep breath as a lump formed in his throat. He had to get the words out. Even if he was using the same tactic that he had decried Edward for using just a moment ago, he had to say it. It had been true.

"…I wanted to die, Dad." Lance let the gravity of that sink in, not wishing to see his father's reaction. He didn't want to see the grief on his face, or the gravity of irresponsibility. Lance stared down at the floor, composing himself.

"And now," Lance said, his voice resuming a normal tone, "All you do now is watch and wait. Why?"

"It's all I can really do, son," Edward answered. This didn't satisfy Lance, and his rage reignited.

"All you can do, really? _All_ you can do?!" Lance screamed, his voice reverberating around the walls of the small room. "You were never there for me, and even when you the opportunity is sitting right in front of you, you'd rather stay here and leave me to fend for myself!"

"I'm weak now!" Edward protested, raising his voice but not screaming. He raised his metal hand in his defense, hoping to placate his son. Lance shook his head in disagreement. Surely there was something he could do to help, some sort of aid that he'd been holding back for some unknown, selfish reason.

Lance wondered briefly if, like his father, he had a tendency to hide his intentions from people. But at least his were noble. "Well, that's just fine, then," he said as he stood up. "Because now it's too late. I'm discarding you like did to me. I was hoping you'd change, but I guess it takes more than nearly getting killed by Mutradi or gangsters to really move you. Just last night, when I was trying to save Kristin, where were you?"

"I was monitoring you, ready to intervene if necessary," Edward insisted. "I provided Octus with the Xenon. He's fully aware of G3's arsenal, and I've corresponded with him greatly about how we could help."

"But not me!"

"I thought you could protect yourself," Edward said more sternly. Lance could see that he was beginning to fight back, at least verbally. "And time and time again, I've seen that you _can_ fend for yourself. You're your own man."

Lance sat back down with a sigh. Edward was right. But that just reminded him of something:

"What are you going to do when all of this is over?"

"Go home. I've found Earth enjoyable, but I'd love to go home as much as you do."

"You really don't know me at all, do you? After months of watching me like a stalker of a father, you just don't get it."

"What do you mean?" Edward asked. "What did I not notice? Son, I'm…I'm sorry."

"I want to see all of this end, too," Lance went on. "But when I do, I'm not going back to Galaluna."

"You're willing to live out the rest of your life on a planet far from home? Galaluna is your home, Lance- _Our_ home. Our destiny is there, not here."

"Since you're not concerned with what happens to me on Earth, you shouldn't care what I'm going to do. I'm staying with Kristin, because here, there's a future for me. I can quit this soldier's life and settle down."

"She's really that important to you, isn't she?" Edward remarked, rubbing his temples in frustration. "But what about Ilana?"

"She has a duty to her people, and I have a duty to her for as long as she's here. But when that's over, I'm free. I'll miss her, but we'll both be happy."

"Is that what this is about? Happiness?" Edward pressed. "Lance, we're in the middle of a war. We don't have time for personal feelings to compromise our objectives!"

 _Typical scientist reaction,_ Lance thought. There was nothing wrong, in his mind, with wanting to feel the freedom that Kristin felt: that state of being where you answered to one unless you wanted to. Kristin, unlike Ilana, didn't need protecting; she just wanted a companion, and after years of loneliness, so did he. Was that really so wrong? Ilana had a whole planet of people, and all Kristin was himself and her family.

"But we're so close to being a family again," Edward pleaded yet again. "We're so close to going home. I never told you didn't I?"

Lance shook his head. Was his father really growing senile?

"I've been working on the blueprints for a second Rift Gate," Edward explained. "It's only in the planning stages right now. The first Rift Gate took years to build and perfect, and even if it worked I'd have to coordinate it so that we end up close to home and not elsewhere in space. Solomon is confident we can get it to work. He's been getting me supplies from Earth's surface, and I don't really know how he procures them. He claims that he gets them from retail stores, but I don't know…"

"Irrelevant. Why didn't you tell this to Ilana and Octus?"

"I didn't want to get Ilana's hopes up. She'd be devastated if I couldn't get the Rift Gate to work properly. It's a long way by space travel to Galaluna. She'd never forgive me if I failed. _Indeed. Can't have three people with a grudge against you, considering that Ilana could have you imprisoned or executed back home,_ Lance thought cynically. Not that she would consider such a thing. His father wasn't worth killing, anyway.

"So don't tell her or Octus yet. I don't want them knowing until everything is ready." Lance nodded in a rare display of agreement.

"I think we're done here," Edward declared. "It's getting late, and I…I will never run out of work to do."

 _Of course,_ Lance thought, walking out.

"Although…" Edward added. "My duties aren't affected by how you feel about me. But it still hurts me that you came to say these things."

"They're true," Lance replied firmly. He walked out the door and proceeded to the hangar, glad to get that off his chest and deciding that a good late-night workout would get his mind off of this aggravating situation.

"But I still love you, even if you won't," Edward muttered.

Lance, of course, was gone.

 **AN: Ok, THIS is much better. Still dialogue-heavy, though.**

 **Also, are you all excited about Samurai Jack coming back?! I never thought this would happen! If it can come back after over a decade, then surely SBT can, too! Speaking of which...**

 **If that DOES end up happening, I plan to cancel this series. No point in making fanfiction when real episodes would be much better by far.**


	3. Chapter 3

Facade

K+

The Lunises had just returned that night from dinner with Kristin's family. "They were so nice!" Ilana remarked as they filed through the doorway.

"Yeah, her parents are nothing like her," Lance agreed. "Nothing like her at all. I thought they'd be aloof and relaxed, but…I guess not." He was hoping the others wouldn't see the glum look on his face.

"Two working parents that have long shifts and a daughter they have likely had many concerns for don't have the luxury of being so 'chill' like you prefer Kristin to be," Octus remarked with a wink. Lance sighed and shifted his gaze to the floor.

"I didn't say 'chill', I said 'aloof'," he insisted. With a smile, he added, "It'll be a cold day on Sirius when start using Earth slang!"

Ilana held back a chuckle. "Well, we all had fun and the mission wasn't compromised, so I'd call it a success!" she declared. "Now we just have to get Jason to have us all over soon." Lance groaned.

"I've already had one gathering, I don't have room for another!" Lance protested. Ilana rolled her eyes and bounded up the stairs, looking at Octus with a "What are we going to do with him?" look. The robot understood.

"Something wrong, Lance?" Octus asked. "You seemed to enjoy yourself earlier."

"Yeah, I did," he replied. "The food was good and we were able to talk. But her parents were like strangers to me. She never introduced me to them. In fact, up until now she seemed to not want to. And then after everything that happened with Neil, she changed. She doesn't have anything to hide anymore, I guess. Not like we do. Not like what we want to do. I was…kind of jealous. She could be free. And happy, with a loving mom and…Dad."

Octus decided not to respond due to not knowing what to say. Lance's father could be contacted, so why did Lance feel like Edward was still "gone"? Was it because he was not physically present?

Suddenly, he received a transmission with a familiar source signal. There was no message, just a request for his presence on G3's airship. Perhaps this was just the impromptu summons he needed.

"Could you get Ilana back down here?" Octus asked. "We still have one more place to visit tonight."

. . . . .

"Great, another gathering," Lance muttered under his breath. He and Ilana were waiting for Ranaron to arrive. Edward and Solomon were already with them.

"Ranaron's knowledge of various Mutradi languages was very helpful with translating the documents," Solomon explained. "It would have taken us much longer without him, and there's no telling what sort of mistakes we could have made." Edward and Ranaron were walking in together, with Edward using Ranaron's arm for support along with cane.

"How long are you going to be limping?" Lance asked his father. Edward shrugged.

"It might be a while, son," he admitted. "That explosion crippled me, and I'm still convinced Modula intended me to be launched from the Rift Gate right into that target practice spot just to hope I'd be blown to bits. I guess that makes me the first indirect casualty of the war he started." Lance went over to give his father a hug and snatched the documents from Ranaron, who held two copies in his other hand for himself and Ilana to pore over if they wished.

"Your father is still a very valuable member of G3," Ranaron added to Lance, whom he could tell was a bit out of sorts. "And I've only been here for a few weeks!"

"Thank you so much, Ranaron," Ilana said as Lance gave her a copy. "Having Octus just project these from his body would take too long to read through, and while he's many things, he's no printer!"

"I think I might be able to install that if I just had some samples of the various ports in Earth computers," Edward suggested.

"With all due respect, Edward, I'm starting to get some suspicious looks every time I have to run by Best Buy. I can't run your errand right now!" Solomon replied. Everyone shared a laugh, even Ranaron, who wasn't quite sure what a Best Buy was but could infer what it sold.

"Well, thanks again! We have to get going, though. School's tomorrow!" Ilana said, turning on her armor and heading out to one of G3's hangars with Octus so they could return home.

"Aren't you going, Lance?" Edward asked. "Do you wish to stay a little while longer?"

"Yeah," Lance replied curtly. "And I want everybody else out of the room, too."

"Is it really so important that we have to leave? Edward's going to be needed around here," Solomon pointed out.

"Yes, this is _personal,_ Solomon. I can't have you or the frog or anybody else get in my way. Tell Ilana and Octus I'll be catching up."

. . . . .

Modula's unofficial home had changed greatly since Ranaron had left. The floors were never cleaned, and food had never been served, leaving Modula to tend to the palace. The Mutradi guarding the place had taken to using the various rooms as barracks, all sleeping in piles or fighting like barbarians for the available beds, not wanting to share. Food was plentiful thanks to the various supplies being brought in from Mutrad and the Galalunans around that were forced to work without pay to prepare it, but the remains tended to get discarded around the palace hallways. Thanks to the sparse lighting, it wasn't uncommon for someone to trip over the bones of some Mutradi game animal, and this tended to fuel rumors among the Mutradi that there were some human bones mixed in from people Modula had killed.

The General himself was in his private room, the bedroom that had belonged to the king and now served as his. He was poring over maps illuminated just by a few candles, trying to discern a battle strategy.

 _I've got to do something about all of those underground holdouts. Bombardment clearly isn't enough, and the air force is getting restless. What about the supply lines? Have I cut them off? Are all the cities secured from siege? That one raid on that village was unforgiveable. If word gets out to the pathetic people—the humans—around here that the Royalists stand a chance, they'll rise up and rebel! In fact, how do I not know that they haven't done so already?!_

He tended to forego eating and sleeping until it was brought to his attention by other turncoat Galalunans.

"General," called an officer knocking at the door. "It's time for dinner. Also, Private Litvut Helmas has been requesting a plunger for his room. His toilet is clogged, you see, and—" The officer winced at the sound of Modula's loud footsteps marching over to the door to open it.

"Can't you see that I'm _busy?!"_ He snapped. "There are many, many war strategies to consider and many things I've had to discuss with my subordinates. But just when I get alone time, you come in to issue me some petty things—orders, practically. Who do you think you are? If you were more like the Mutradi and saw just what I was doing on behalf of _both_ of our planets you'd retract your requests immediately!"

With a gulp, the officer replied: "W-with all due respect, General, you might wish to consider a change of…scenery. You've been cooped up in here too long, too content for the war to just end itself. Nothing around here will change unless we, you know, mix things up." At his words, Modula paused for a moment before giving a wicked grin.

"That's actually not a bad idea. Not a bad idea at all. I think a few changes are in order." Modula stood up from his desk—formerly the king's—took his maps and candle and headed out the room into the hallway, knocking on all of the doors. "Your General wishes to see you in the throneroom at once!" he shouted for as long as he was able to from outside the rooms.

When all of the Mutradi and Galalunans in the palace had assembled, Modula announced his plan.

"Some officer just gave me a simple, yet _brilliant_ idea," Modula explained. "A change of pace is in order. Every Mutradi here, as well as a few Galalunans whom I am certain I can trust, are going off to the front with me!" Cheers erupted from the Mutradi who were eager to see some action, which tended to be the Nephilimites and other more brutish species.

"Indeed. Brilliant, is it not?" Modula said. "I've wasted too much time trying to destroy Titan directly. So I'm going to destroy it indirectly and have us go and destroy the pathetic life-forms of this planet directly!" This brought more cheers from the Mutradi and nervous looks from the other Galalunan traitors.

"Lieutenant Baron!" Modula called out into the crowd. "You will accompany me on this mission! And whoever it was that suggested this idea—"

"That would be me, sir! Major Palius!" the Galalunan man who had started this whole thing answered.

"You'll be taking care of the place while I'm gone!" Modula announced, leading to snickers and laughter from everyone else in the room.

Later, as the group prepared to head out, Baron approached Modula. "If I may be so bold, General, what exactly are you going to use to attack Titan indirectly?"

"A very good question, Baron," Modula said. "I've already gotten my scientists on Mutrad to produce some very…devastating parasites to handle that problem, or at the very least slow Titan down. And they'll be making a very grand arrival. Remember that statue I commissioned to be built in my honor? The one I believe is approximate to Titan itself in size?"

"Yeah…what was the point of that, General?" Baron asked. Modula chuckled.

"It's just an innocent mask, hiding the real threat. You're smart to question why."

Chapter 2

Lance sat across from Edward in silence in his private room. He remembered how their last meeting here had been happy and unexpected; this one was arranged and much more somber. He wondered if these sorts of meetings had come to define his life.

 _But for the first time, I'm doing it on my terms._

"What's this all about?" His father asked.

"You worked a lot," he began, sitting upright so that he had to look down at his father to see his face. He noticed that even if Edward could stand perfectly upright, Lance would still be taller.

"Pretty much every day of the week, Mom cared for me for as a baby. But then she left, and I had no one." Edward sighed, shifting his eyes downward to the floor. Suddenly, he darted his head, turning to face Lance again more sternly.

"That wasn't my fault," he protested. "Things just…I had so many priorities and she felt like she wasn't one of them. So…we split up. And I thought it was for the best, at the time."

"So, she was not a major priority, eh?" Lance almost wanted to smile from the bitter irony of it all. A mother—worthless in the eyes of science!

"I'm sorry, Lance. I never knew how much I had hurt you. I'm sorry you didn't get to have a real mother. I guess I should have remarried. She just wasn't very forgiving and couldn't tolerate flaws in other people. She couldn't understand why I had to keep working like I did."

"Let me guess, 'scientific progress'?" Lance asked with a sneer.

"I was paving the way for a better life for all Galalunans!" Edward protested, his voice wavering mid-sentence. Lance shut his eyes in irritation. It was appalling for him to try and excuse himself with emotional rhetoric. That sort of thing might sway Ilana, but not him.

"Yeah, a better life. For everyone except us," Lance corrected. He dug his fingers into the arms of the chair he sat in, straining a bit to hold back his anger. "You never came back home until 2 AM, ready to tell me what _you_ were doing, whatever _you_ wanted to talk about. My life apart from you didn't matter. So I did nothing. No friends. No fun. No time to ask you if I could."

Edward's lip quivered, and his eyes watered. Lance was glad to be getting somewhere, but he wasn't done yet.

"Then…then I died," Edward said. "You told me you went to the Academy. Met a boy named Arthur, and another named Baron." Lance nodded.

"Baron was cruel," he said. "I had to learn self-reliance. I couldn't count on anyone to help me but myself. I had nothing to live for other than my own survival. So I just kept going, hoping that the training would wear me out."

Lance took a deep breath as a lump formed in his throat. He had to get the words out. Even if he was using the same tactic that he had decried Edward for using just a moment ago, he had to say it. It had been true.

"…I wanted to die, Dad." Lance let the gravity of that sink in, not wishing to see his father's reaction. He didn't want to see the grief on his face, or the gravity of irresponsibility. Lance stared down at the floor, composing himself.

"And now," Lance said, his voice resuming a normal tone, "All you do now is watch and wait. Why?"

"It's all I can really do, son," Edward answered. This didn't satisfy Lance, and his rage reignited.

"All you can do, really? _All_ you can do?!" Lance screamed, his voice reverberating around the walls of the small room. "You were never there for me, and even when you the opportunity is sitting right in front of you, you'd rather stay here and leave me to fend for myself!"

"I'm weak now!" Edward protested, raising his voice but not screaming. He raised his metal hand in his defense, hoping to placate his son. Lance shook his head in disagreement. Surely there was something he could do to help, some sort of aid that he'd been holding back for some unknown, selfish reason.

Lance wondered briefly if, like his father, he had a tendency to hide his intentions from people. But at least his were noble. "Well, that's just fine, then," he said as he stood up. "Because now it's too late. I'm discarding you like did to me. I was hoping you'd change, but I guess it takes more than nearly getting killed by Mutradi or gangsters to really move you. Just last night, when I was trying to save Kristin, where were you?"

"I was monitoring you, ready to intervene if necessary," Edward insisted. "I provided Octus with the Xenon. He's fully aware of G3's arsenal, and I've corresponded with him greatly about how we could help."

"But not me!"

"I thought you could protect yourself," Edward said more sternly. Lance could see that he was beginning to fight back, at least verbally. "And time and time again, I've seen that you _can_ fend for yourself. You're your own man."

Lance sat back down with a sigh. Edward was right. But that just reminded him of something:

"What are you going to do when all of this is over?"

"Go home. I've found Earth enjoyable, but I'd love to go home as much as you do."

"You really don't know me at all, do you? After months of watching me like a stalker of a father, you just don't get it."

"What do you mean?" Edward asked. "What did I not notice? Son, I'm…I'm sorry."

"I want to see all of this end, too," Lance went on. "But when I do, I'm not going back to Galaluna."

"You're willing to live out the rest of your life on a planet far from home? Galaluna is your home, Lance- _Our_ home. Our destiny is there, not here."

"Since you're not concerned with what happens to me on Earth, you shouldn't care what I'm going to do. I'm staying with Kristin, because here, there's a future for me. I can quit this soldier's life and settle down."

"She's really that important to you, isn't she?" Edward remarked, rubbing his temples in frustration. "But what about Ilana?"

"She has a duty to her people, and I have a duty to her for as long as she's here. But when that's over, I'm free. I'll miss her, but we'll both be happy."

"Is that what this is about? Happiness?" Edward pressed. "Lance, we're in the middle of a war. We don't have time for personal feelings to compromise our objectives!"

 _Typical scientist reaction,_ Lance thought. There was nothing wrong, in his mind, with wanting to feel the freedom that Kristin felt: that state of being where you answered to one unless you wanted to. Kristin, unlike Ilana, didn't need protecting; she just wanted a companion, and after years of loneliness, so did he. Was that really so wrong? Ilana had a whole planet of people, and all Kristin was himself and her family.

"But we're so close to being a family again," Edward pleaded yet again. "We're so close to going home. I never told you didn't I?"

Lance shook his head. Was his father really growing senile?

"I've been working on the blueprints for a second Rift Gate," Edward explained. "It's only in the planning stages right now. The first Rift Gate took years to build and perfect, and even if it worked I'd have to coordinate it so that we end up close to home and not elsewhere in space. Solomon is confident we can get it to work. He's been getting me supplies from Earth's surface, and I don't really know how he procures them. He claims that he gets them from retail stores, but I don't know…"

"Irrelevant. Why didn't you tell this to Ilana and Octus?"

"I didn't want to get Ilana's hopes up. She'd be devastated if I couldn't get the Rift Gate to work properly. It's a long way by space travel to Galaluna. She'd never forgive me if I failed. _Indeed. Can't have three people with a grudge against you, considering that Ilana could have you imprisoned or executed back home,_ Lance thought cynically. Not that she would consider such a thing. His father wasn't worth killing, anyway.

"So don't tell her or Octus yet. I don't want them knowing until everything is ready." Lance nodded in a rare display of agreement.

"I think we're done here," Edward declared. "It's getting late, and I…I will never run out of work to do."

 _Of course,_ Lance thought, walking out.

"Although…" Edward added. "My duties aren't affected by how you feel about me. But it still hurts me that you came to say these things."

"They're true," Lance replied firmly. He walked out the door and proceeded to the hangar, glad to get that off his chest and deciding that a good late-night workout would get his mind off of this aggravating situation.

"But I still love you, even if you won't," Edward muttered.

Lance, of course, was gone.

 **AN: Ok, THIS is much better. Still dialogue-heavy, though.**

Chapter 3

Ilana had been hoping that next morning at school was when things could finally settle down. No more conflicts, no more monster interruptions, and no more struggling to keep up the family disguise.

Jason, of course, showed up between classes, a look of concern and suspicion on his face. "Can we talk?" he asked, willing to trail Ilana as she clutched her textbooks to her chest, hoping he'd just give up. Hopefully by the end of the week he'd forget what he had wanted to ask.

"About what? Dating plans?" she suggested. "I would _love_ trying out that new Mexican restaurant on that nice corner downtown and—"

"No. You know _exactly_ what I'm talking about," he said.

She stopped walking, and he clumsily bumped into her for a moment. Her back was turned to him, so he didn't see her smile faintly before turning to him.

"How much do you know?" she asked, taking a deep breath.

"I know you like to pretend like nothing's wrong," Jason said. "I know you're hiding something from me. And I know you've got something to do with that robot. I just want answers, Ilana. You've avoided me so much, and it's made me confused and afraid." He looked down, shuffling his feet. "I don't know what that means because I've never dated a girl before, but it can't be a good thing. I just want to see that kindhearted, non-judgmental, enthusiastic…and really pretty girl again. But it's like she's gone now, replaced with that golden robot."

Ilana felt a lump form in her throat, which she swallowed to suppress. When she had first arrived on Earth she thought she would never have to choose between companionship and jeopardizing her safety in the name of transparency. But circumstances had their ways of forcing bad things upon her.

"Yes," she said simply. Jason did not react; most likely he already knew that but still wanted to hear it from her. He did not know the most outrageous part, of course.

"I'm the robot," she went on. "Lance, Octus and I…we are the machines that have been saving Sherman. And we're Titan, together. We can't let most people know. We don't want the monsters attacking us to know who we are. We have a duty to protect Earth. And I promise you, I will _never_ let those monsters get in the way of us."

"Mark and Gregory were right," he muttered. "It's all top-secret, huh?" he pressed. She nodded. "Good luck telling _them_ that," he added. "They like you, you know. But they won't settle for kind words like I did. They'll want answers. Heck, they'll ask you stuff as soon as they find you."

Suddenly the bell rung, much to Ilana's relief. She suspected that Jason was feeling the same way.

"I'll find a way," she said, more to herself than Jason. "But what about you? Why are you ok with me just telling you what you already know? Don't you want to know more?" she added, regretting the words almost right after she had said them.

"I don't care," Jason said, his voice cracking a bit, and most definitively not from puberty. "I just want you to be normal again. I want… _us_ back again. No space stuff, no secret missions, no hiding and no robots. Just us." He sighed, nearing tears. "It was a mistake," he added.

Ilana couldn't take it anymore. Tears ran down her face, tickling her cheeks as she embraced Jason. She was so ashamed of herself.

"I…I…I'm so sorry," she muttered, her face buried in his shoulder. "I just want to be normal. I didn't ask for any of this." Jason, for his part, was a bit surprised.

"No, _I'm_ sorry," he said, returning her embrace. "I didn't mean that. Dating you wasn't a mistake. I just didn't think through what I said! I get it, this is important to you. Please don't cry. You're gonna make me cry…I don't want to lose you. Not to your family, or those monsters, or whatever it is you do."

The sorrow and shame shared by both parties lasted a little while longer, and when it was over they separated and went to class, trying to move on. Looking back, Ilana was actually a bit relieved that she had broken down: now she had bought off just enough time to seek out some way to clear herself of suspicion from her peers for good. After class she went into a bathroom stall and turned on her watch.

"Solomon?" she asked.

"Yeah? I didn't expect a call from you, Ilana. What's up?"

"I may have been a bit rash during that lunar fiasco," she explained.

"Huh? Oh, yeah, that. What do you need?"

"You're with the US government, right?"

"No, we're an NGO—Non-governmental organization. I told you that when I…made my own rash decision, remember? Our equipment is funded by private donors, manufactured by us, and all headed by Edward. We're the sort of people conspiracy theorists like to talk about."

"Ok. But you're still in good standing with General Steel, right? Is there any way you can get Jason's friends off my back?" She proceeded to further explain everything that had happened. There was silence on the other end for a moment.

"Ah, I think I have an idea," Solomon said. "I'll pull some strings and see what I can do. If it works, all 3 of those boys will be out of your hair for a while. You'll see."

. . . . .

Kimmy had not been expecting this, nor had she wanted it. But it had happened anyway.

"You're dating Newton, right?" the girl asked. "What's he like? A bit of a recluse?"

"…Yeah," she said. "Could we maybe continue this conversation…elsewhere? This kind of my lunch hour."

"What's the problem? You can eat and talk at the same time," Kristin pointed out.

"Yes, but you drove all of my friends away. They don't know who you are, and frankly, I don't know you that well, either. I mean, you're emo or something…right? One of the stoners?" Kimmy was met with a glare.

"Kristin Black. Nice to meet you," the girl said sarcastically. "Ditch your friends and let's chat."

"About what, Newton? He's none of your business."

"Yeah, I just want to get to know him. I had Lance over for dinner at my place with our families, but Newton wasn't there."

"How should I know where he was? He wasn't with me. Probably doing homework or nerd junk or something. What's your point? If you wanna join us, get a new wardrobe."

"What I'm _saying_ is, I wanna know how he worked behind the scenes with Devon and Lance to bust me out of the mess I was in."

"What mess? And what does Lance have to do with this?" Kimmy didn't know how slowly she could finish her salad, and she wasn't about to find out. Why had her friends insisted on such small portions? It left little time to socialize, and now it was all being wasted with this weird girl.

Kristin smacked her forehead. "Wow, I didn't explain anything, did I?" She proceeded to explain her life story. Kimmy wasn't personally interested in stories of gangs and illegal activity, but when the rescue part came in, she realized that Newton had never told her about this. In fact, he hadn't answered her calls that day. Nor had he shown up for that dinner Kristin mentioned, even though the Lunis patriarch—whom she realized she had never even seen—had been there.

A horrifying revelation crossed Kimmy's mind. If she was correct, the Lunises were pretty messed up. In fact…

After a rush to the bathroom, she explained to Kristin everything she knew about her boyfriend: his mysterious disappearances, the way their family operated, and now this seemingly minor incident.

"So?" Kristin asked. "Maybe they're just shy. If you want to spend time gossiping about the Lunises, go do it with your girlfriends. Just leave me out of it, and Lance to. Or else."

"Trust me, I'm not jealous or anything," Kimmy insisted. That much was true, even though Monica would probably want to break them up if she knew that Lance had a steady girlfriend. Every now and then she still said that Lance was hot, as if none of them knew that by now. "I'm just a little weirded out by the fact that I've never seen Newton or Mr. Lunis together. _And_ they look kind of alike. And, well…a number of things."

"Who cares?" Kristin said. "I'm sure there's a logical explanation. Just lay off of them, ok?"

"Don't you get it? They're hiding things from us!" Kimmy insisted. "Our own boyfriends, their whole family. And we could have been played for fools. I could be dating a man in his _forties,_ for all I know! Ugh…and I kissed him!"

"No, you kissed Newton," Kristin said. "You're fine. There's probably just a family resemblance. It happens. Ilana and Lance probably just take after their mom more. She's probably dead, though, don't bring that up."

"All the more reason why their dad would want a new girl to be with!" Kimmy whispered in horror. She didn't notice Kristin clenching her fists.

"Screw you, you stuck-up liar!" she muttered, and walked away. Kimmy left in a huff as well, disappointed that her lunch had been completely used up, only to be literally lost.

She heard some nerds talking about some robot girls and how they were the ones fighting off the monsters that kept popping up around Sherman. Wait…monsters? Robots? All around the time the Lunises showed up?

"Hey, boys," she asked in what she hoped was a teasing, seductive voice. "What are you talking about?"

"Robot girls," the blond one whose hair wasn't actually that bad gulped.

"We think Ilana has something to do with it! Maybe even her whole family!" the nerdier looking one said. The blond one nudged him.

"Dude, you can't just tell this to everybody," he said. "This is just, like, gossip."

"Well, I just _love_ guys that gossip!" Kimmy said, smiling sweetly into their eyes, bending so that her face aligned with theirs.

"Uh, we got tons of that!" Gregory insisted.

"I have more!" Mark said.

Kimmy was amazed that this worked. Boys were often easy to coerce information out of, at least for her. Except, curiously, for Octus, who seemed to be immune to all that. And Lance, who seemed to act like she didn't even exist.

Like they were from another planet, or something!

. . . . .

Dr. Kevin Murphy was starting to like his classes, quite a lot.

They weren't as bright as the ones from the last school he taught at. But they were not as docile, not as easily accepting of ideologies. He wanted to just blame the Internet, but that was far too simplistic. Many people often blamed things on a single factor, when it was actually a bunch of multi-faceted things beyond the control of any individual.

And those many multi-faceted things had brought him a job. Not a very well-paying job, sure, but it came with a reward: home.

He had survived the crash, unlike most others. The humans were fortunate, probably living out somewhere in this city or on the other side of the planet by now. The Nephilimites were less lucky; it was likely that some of them had been contained. The rest of the Mutradi had died in the crash, thankfully. At first Kevin had wondered if it would have been best for the mission if everyone had died, but it wasn't long before he got a message. The eye on the General's hat was wondrous; how did it reach across planets and solar systems and stars so easily? Much more impressive than the allegedly convenient "email" and "text messages" he had heard so much about from his students. While there were busy taking repetitive photos of themselves, he was gathering intelligence.

"Kelvin Minos," came a voice that seemed to reverberate around the inside of his skull. "Can you hear me?"

"General?" he asked.

"What would you assess Ilana's awareness of our arrival?"

"It will be another surprise attack, as always," he said. "But there is a bit of information I wish to share. Two of my students have confirmed for themselves the identity of Ilana. They know she is Corus. But they don't know where she is from just yet."

"And? Is this all you want to tell me?"

"No, General. I overheard that the girl that one of ours shapeshifted into in order to combat Titan—"

"Which Mutradi was that again? The shapeshifting one? I had no idea why it turned into a human."

"Yes, the red-haired female. She is attracted to the robot."

"Romantically? Foolish. Leave it to Lucius and Edward to design a machine that serves as a vital conduit for the formation of the Sym-Bionic Titan, and provide it with… _feelings._ Ugh."

"Indeed. Anyway, she is growing suspicious of their very un-Earth-like activities. Soon their cover will be exposed, while mine is perfectly intact, as are the origins of our monsters."

"Very well. But how is any of this relevant?"

"I propose that we infiltrate Earth with more spies to infiltrate certain branches of this nation's government, and have them designate Ilana and her associates as a public enemy. Those with information should report and be rewarded greatly, and hailed as heroes for stopping the terrorists disguised as 'heroes'."

"I'll give it some thought."

Kevin Murphy/Kelvin Minos was disappointed with Modula's decision, but it was at least promising.

 **AN: Kimmy doesn't know everything, just about as much as Jason does. They're both starting to connect the dots, whereas Kristin doesn't care because she would rather not know.**

 **AN 2: How did Kevin Murphy know that the Mutradi might have come from the dark side of the moon? There's your answer: he's a spy for General Modula that survived the Battleship crash from the last "season".**


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

On Galaluna, Modula was overseeing the transfer of his statue, laden with its precious cargo, into an unmanned probe ship. It was flimsy, constructed out of a weak alloy of organic materials found throughout Mutraad, rock, and metal that would likely melt when the vehicle tried to enter Earth's atmosphere. But all of that was to be expected, since all of this was just shielding to protect the parasites.

"You tested these extensively, correct?" Modula asked one of his scientists. This was the one that had taken place of the one that had been killed when Tashy had failed to eliminate Titan.

"Affirmative," he replied. He knew that if the General's planned offensive against the royalist rebellion failed he would be in a bad mood, so it was imperative for the creatures he and his team had developed to be successful. And if it wasn't, there was a contingency plan in place that Modula couldn't possibly know about.

"Then my funding should be money well spent," Modula said contentedly. "Perhaps then I can lift the restriction on you and your colleagues."

"What restriction, General?" the scientist asked, although he already had a good idea of what it was.

"None of you are authorized to leave the planet until this…experiment is over."

"But…! I…"

"Why else would I have requested such extensive paperwork and identification up front?" Modula sneered. The scientist bowed humbly in submission, hoping to conceal his frustrated expression from the General.

Minutes later both of them as well as various other prominent individuals involved in the project watched as the probe was launched into the Rift Gate.

. . . . .

"And can you believe it was for just the three of us?!" Mark exclaimed to Jason the next day at school.

"Yeah, it seems…really amazing," he admitted sheepishly.

"That's a bit of an understatement, don't you think?" Gregory said. "NASA actually values us! We're now officially assets of the American government! Which is probably disturbing as well as a great self-esteem boost."

"Yeah, and now everything about Ilana makes so much sense!" Mark added. The others nodded in agreement. Jason, of course, had more hidden sentiments, but he too was happy that Ilana—it had to have been her—had arranged all of this.

"Glad I found you guys!" Kimmy said, once again trying to act as if she was madly in love with all three of them. A logical impossibility, considering that she had tried once a few years back, with tragic results. "What are you all chatting about? Is it…exciting?"

"You bet it is!" Mark cried. "For helping out with Ilana and her family a while back, NASA's giving us a tour of the ISS! The International Space Station!"

"Oh…?" Kimmy wasn't quite sure what the big deal with that was, but she had remembered everything Mark and Gregory had told her yesterday about how they suspected the Lunises were with the government. If a government group had just contacted them with some "reward" for "helping" them, then something was up.

"What did you guys do, exactly?" she asked. "I'd like to meet these robots. I _love_ robots that fight off giant monsters."

"Top secret!" Mark said.

"Classified!" Gregory said at the same time. Kimmy gave a pouting frown she hoped looked sexy.

"Well, that's too bad, then," Kimmy said. "I was going to hang out with you guys, but if you're going to be going into space then I guess that won't be happening…"

"What are you talking about? That's not until next week!" Mark told her, anxious to get this close to a pretty and popular girl. "They haven't gotten everything ready yet!" Jason had been silent for a while, taking in the scene and being amazed by how easily Mark and Gregory were being suckered by Kimmy's feminine charms. It was pathetic, really.

"Look, we don't know much about how this happened, or why they felt we were such a big help," Jason told her. "But we did help them with a mission a while back, and I guess they want to thank us." The bell rang and Mark and Gregory left, continuing to discuss what they wanted to do once they were on the space station.

"But to tell you the truth," Jason added when they had left, "I don't know what to believe right now."

"What do you mean?" Kimmy pressed.

Jason shuffled his feet and looked down awkwardly. "I don't want to tell you."

"Fine. Meet up with me after school, and bring your friends. We're all getting to the bottom of this. The Lunises have been lying to us."

. . . . .

The rocket containing the statue of Modula's likeness soared through space and the Rift Gate just as school was ending. Octus picked it up as he was in the parking lot, waiting to make sure that Ilana and Lance left before he did—they had planned to take Lance's car home with Kristin. He detected them safely getting into Lance's car, with Kimmy nowhere near them. He could tell by analyzing her from where he was that she was anxious and a bit angry.

"Oh, you're coming home with us, Kristin?" Ilana asked. "Are your parents out of town or something?"

"No, I just came to warn you to," she explained as she got into the passenger's seat while Ilana sat in the back. "Kimmy's gone nuts and she tried to get me in on this crazy plan to figure out some truth behind you guys."

Ilana stifled a gasp and her eyes widened. Lance gripped the steering wheel tight as he started the drive home, trying to remain calm.

"Sounds weird," he remarked, trying to sound nonchalant. "What did she say?"

"Ridiculous crap about how Newton and your dad are the same person"—

"—They aren't!" Ilana blurted out. "Why would she think that?" Through the rearview mirror, Lance glared at her.

 _The more we try to deny it, the more suspicious she'll get. You had better understand that quickly, Ilana._

"And she thinks your dad is like a perverted creep that goes after young women," Kristin added. Lance curled his lip back, hiding his amusement. Kimmy was so wrong! Ilana, on the other hand, was horrified.

"Our father is a great man!" she declared. "Why would she say terrible things like this?"

Kristin shrugged. "She's probably insecure and has a desire to make up stuff," she suggested. "Maybe she wants the attention. I can relate, not that I approve."

As they were driving, Lance could see a car approaching him from a side lane. In the driver's seat was Kimmy, with Jason and his friends. She seemed to be gaining on him fast.

"Are they _following_ us?" Lance asked aloud. The girls turned around in shock to confirm his suspicions. Ilana whispered into her watch:

"We need help! A distraction!" she pleaded.

"I'm on it," replied Octus, who was driving behind the two cars to keep an eye on the situation. "However, I should tell you that the Rift Gate has just opened up. But there is no discernible life approaching Earth, so we might not need to worry."

"Yes, we do!" Ilana insisted. "There's still Kimmy to worry about!"

"Indeed. I will provide a distraction," the robot promised.

But his promise was a bit delayed. Kimmy's car began to speed up so that her car was just to the left of Lance's.

. "We'll be getting on the Interstate soon and crossing that bridge downtown," Kristin reminded them. "That should get her off of us, but she's going _way_ too fast."

"No such thing where we're from!" Lance piped up.

"Lance, whatever you're thinking, _don't!"_

Naturally, he didn't listen. Lance sped up to the speed that he had only ever used when racing Mike Chan, zigzagging past the cars ahead of him. Ilana cowered in fear, shutting her eyes, but Kristin was amazed.

"You souped this up, didn't you?"

Lance only gave a faint smile. "Hold on!" he cried, a bit louder than necessary.

He got onto the lane leading out to the Interstate to downtown. Now the bridge that had been made after the first Mutradi had left a giant crater in Sherman lay ahead of them, but Lance had no intention of crossing it directly.

"What are they doing?!" Kimmy screamed when she saw the Lunis' car speed up ahead of them and veer off the road.

"Could we maybe slow down?" Jason asked. "Or just call them and ask them to meet us nicely? Is this car chase necessary?"

"It's the only way to find out!" she insisted. "The more they run, the more we know they're hiding something!"

Just before reaching the bridge, Lance had driven his car off to the side, heading down the steep slope into the crater, where some unmanned excavators lay. They had been tasked with filling the crater back up with dirt, but for now the construction workers weren't there, thankfully. Lance surveyed his surroundings and thought fast.

"I'm going to stop the car just past the excavator," he explained to the girls. "I'm going to use it to slow Kimmy down. Kristin, you drive. Ilana, look under the hood and flick on the light blue switch, then get in the passenger's seat. Kristin, if you're stuck, just flick on the windshield wipers to get yourself out."

"How would that help me?" she asked nervously as Lance put on the brakes. Once the car had stopped he got out without answering her question and ran to the excavator. It was much slower than he had hoped, but he already had thought of what to do.

Kimmy's car sped down the slope just as Lance's had done, albeit more clumsily. The car bounced and bumped, even getting in the air a few times.

"This is insane!" Jason screamed. "You're insane!" Mark and Gregory, meanwhile, were too terrified to speak.

"I've got insurance!" Kimmy insisted. "It's all just a bunch of scratches!"

"I'm talking about _us,_ you idiot!" Jason yelled back. Once her car had gotten down into the crater, Lance was already in control of the excavator. He lowered its arm-like component normally used for scooping up dirt and landed it in front of Kimmy's car. She barely had enough time to swerve, and when she stopped she found that her car was trapped in the dirt. Lance was able to swing the excavator's arm around so that it hovered just over her car, and slowly poured a pile of dirt on top of it, making sure not to drop the whole thing at once for fear of destroying the car and killing its occupants.

Inside Kimmy's car, dirt blinded the windshield. Jason began to panic. "Are we stuck in here?!" he cried. "Why would construction workers turn on us like this?!"

"Calm down, man!" Gregory reassured him. "We'll get out of this."

"In the meantime, that was awesome!" Mark cried. "I've never had such a thrill in my life! Well, there was that time I beat that ROM hack of a Mario game, can't remember which one…it was really hard! And I beat it! This was like that, times one hundred!"

"Yeah, this was awesome and all, but seriously, dude, Kimmy just drove us off the road and into a pit just to find out something that _we_ already told her," Gregory pointed out. "That's just weird."

"Shut up!" Kimmy barked back. "I just need to see if everything you've been telling me is true. It's not that I don't believe you, I just need to hear it from them."

Meanwhile, Lance's car was also stuck in the dirt. "I think we need to do what Lance said about the windshield wipers!" Ilana insisted to Kristin.

"But what exactly does that do?" Kristin asked her. Ilana shrugged, so Kristin took a chance and went for it.

Immediately, the car zoomed forward, racing upward out of the dirt and up the other side of the crater in no time at all.

"Oh, this must be the boost function!" Ilana guessed, her tone nervous from all of the stress in the car chase.

"The what?" Kristin asked. "Oh yeah, he raced Mike Chan. What was that like?"

"I don't know, I wasn't there! I told him it was dangerous and stupid, but he didn't listen!"

"Heh heh. Let's just get ourselves to your place."


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Octus arrived at the construction site with a plan in mind. He hovered over to one of the pillars by the bridge and contacted Lance:

"Lance, please exit the vehicle. I have a plan. I need you to start scraping the dirt off the car with your bare hands. I will be projecting a hologram onto your body to make you appear as someone else. Leave the talking to me; I can hear your voice from here."

"What's the plan, though?" Lance asked.

"I will project a hologram of Brandon Chase over your body," Octus explained. "You remain silent and perform the movements I asked. Do what you think he would do."

"I can't exactly scoop up huge mounds of dirt with my bare hands, you know."

"Precisely. We must stall for time. I'll monitor Kimmy's vitals so that she doesn't suffocate in there.

Back at the Lunis home, Ilana urged Kristin to return home.

"It's not safe here," she said. "Just leave all of the Kimmy insanity to us."

"Are you sure?" Kristin asked. "I can totally lend a hand if you need it. I've got some old friends that might be able to help as well."

"No, no, it's fine. We're just…trying to do damage control right now." Ilana paced the room and sighed a bit, impatiently turning back to Kristin.

"Well? Didn't you hear me? I said to leave and go home. We really just needed to get Lance's car back in one piece."

"Are you all right?" Kristin asked as she opened the front door to walk home. "You seem a bit stressed. Like, outside of all of this."

Ilana sighed. "Yes, I am," she admitted. "I don't know what I'm doing. I just made a bunch of impulsive decisions that could jeopardize us. And I can't take any of them back. Coming here might have been a huge mistake."

"What are you talking about?"

"Just go home. Please. It'll be easier this way."

Kristin left. Ilana watched her walk down the street. Hopefully, she thought, she'd never need to know the whole truth. She doubted she could keep it from all of these Earthlings much longer, anyway. She mulled over the term, wondering where she had first heard of it. She remembered that it was what fictional aliens called people from Earth. It sounded derogatory to her, but she was starting not to care.

"They're so…inquisitive," she said to herself. "They endlessly seek knowledge, and one day they might all know about us." In contrast, Galalunan culture discouraged discovery. For centuries scientific progress had been discouraged at worst and carefully controlled, at best. There was no institutionalized religion on Galaluna like the Catholic Church had sometimes been—she remembered learning about this in one of her history classes—but instead there was this collective understanding that it was best for some things to not be known. People would not be able to hold the burden of that knowledge, it was agreed, unless it was brought to the attention of the people by consensus.

Her father was trying to divert that way of thinking from the people, and it had so far been successful. Mutrad had been observed for centuries by telescope, and the Manus robots had been received with praise. But most of Galaluna's fledgling space fleet was cautious about exploring the greater cosmos. In fact, her voyage to Earth might have been the first time that Galalunans had ventured beyond their solar system, if she remembered correctly. It occurred to her that Lance might know, what with his father's career.

"Ilana, you are needed," Octus' voice came over her watch.

"Oh! Sorry. Kristin's secure. Where's Lance?"

"He is occupied at the moment."

"In the bathroom?"

"Negative. Come to my location and I will explain further."

Ilana obeyed, turning on her armor and flying off back to the crater. "Hey, Octus," she asked as she neared the site, "Aren't we the first Galalunans to leave our solar system?"

"…Yes, that is factually correct, although that information is irrelevant at the moment."

"Oh. I was just wondering."

"Wonder at another time."

"Sorry."

. . . . . .

Kimmy sat nervously in her car, with Jason, Mark and Gregory sitting in anxious silence.

"We're…going to be getting out of here, right?" Jason asked. Kimmy's hands shook as she gripped the steering wheel.

"What did I just do?" she muttered to herself. "I need to get out of here. I need to apologize to Octus. I need to fix all of this somehow."

"Hey, what's that noise?" Mark asked the group. "It sounds like somebody grunting."

They watched as the dirt covering the car's front windows began to shift, and they soon saw hands emerging from the dirt to dig away.

"That sounds like…Brandon's voice!" Kimmy cried in astonishment.

Minutes later, "Brandon" had revealed himself and scraped away enough dirt to get everyone out of the car. Kimmy hugged him once they finally met. Lance, as Brandon, winced but returned the embrace to stay in character.

"I can't believe it! You came here to save me!" she cried.

"Hey, babe," Octus said, speaking for Brandon. "I saw the car buried in the dirt and thought I'd help out. I didn't know it was you. Heck, I don't have any idea where you've been lately." Lance, as Brandon, affectionately placed a hand on Kimmy's shoulder.

"Brandon…I'm so sorry," Kimmy confessed. "I thought the Lunises had some crazy secrets. I tried to go after them—"

"—And she got us in this mess," Jason said, starting to leave the crater. "Come on, guys, let's go home."

"I've had enough insanity for one day," Gregory agreed.

"Are you guys kidding?! That was intense!" Mark chimed in. "I didn't know Kimmy was a badass as well as hot!" Kimmy rolled her eyes.

"I agree with them," Lance told her. "On both accounts. I'll get you all out of here." Kimmy went back to her car and put it in neutral so that he could pull it out more easily. She was breathless as she watched "Brandon's" muscles strain with the weight of the car. She didn't remember him being the type to show off like that. Still, it made sense—he was captain of the football team once. "A little help, fellas?" Lance asked. Jason shrugged and motioned for his friends to assist him. Once the car was out, the group pushed it up out of the crater together, eventually getting it right back on the road.

"Whew!" Lance exhaled, wiping the sweat from his brow. The sweat, of course, was real, but Lance figured Brandon would be the type to sexily act like he was sweltering in the heat. "That sure was a bit of a workout. Y'know, the kind of thing I do all the time."

Jason rolled his eyes. He had never seen Brandon this flirtatious before, but he was probably acting this way to make them all jealous; it just made him look really obnoxious instead. "Ok, well, listen, thanks and all, but we've gotta go." Jason grabbed his friends and dragged them to the sidewalk, hoping to get them out of this mess.

"Wait!" Mark asked. "Are we just going to let Kimmy off the hook for basically kidnapping us?"

"Yes. We're just going to pretend like it never happened." Jason didn't really want to get involved in all of this controversy. All of this talk of aliens and secrets and robots was beginning to stress him out. _Maybe that whole "rose petal bath" thing girls do isn't such a bad idea. But where do I get the rose petals…?_

Kimmy stared at the ground in shame. "Brandon," she began, "I haven't been thinking straight…and…ever since you left, I—"

"Shh…" Lance whispered, realizing it was easier to act if he didn't talk as much. "You're safe now. Come on, let's get you home." Kimmy smiled and hugged him.

"You're so much sweeter than you used to be!" she pointed out as he escorted her into the passenger's seat of the car. "Just like when we first met. But I'm dating Newton now, and…well, I guess that doesn't matter now. He just…he won't know about this, won't he?" Lance gulped as he started the car, eager to get out of this holographic disguise. Octus was definitely hearing all of this.

Suddenly, his watch vibrated. Octus had sent him a text of sorts. It simply read: INORGANIC MUTRADI DETECTED. LEAVE KIMMY.

Lance found a spot on the curb of a neighborhood sidewalk to park his car and got out. "Listen, something just came up," he explained. "I, uh, have to go meet some other jocks. We have football practice."

"But football season is over!" Kimmy said. "Heck, it'll be summer soon. What's going on?"

"Well, to tell you the truth, I'm afraid of commitment!" he admitted. _Hopefully that will keep Kimmy with Octus; he'd kill me if I broke them up!_

"Wait," Kimmy pleaded. "Before you go…" she reached over and kissed Lance. Although the hologram flickered for a moment, just as it had done when she had kissed Octus in the same way, it quickly reformed.

Both Lance and Octus were horrified, but nothing could be done. Lance quickly left, jogging back the opposite direction. Since Kimmy could have been looking at him through her rearview mirrors, he waited to round a corner before turning on Manus and flying low to where Octus was.

"I'm sorry!" Lance sputtered once he was safely away from Kimmy. "She kissed me, ok? It wasn't the other way around."

"I know," Octus replied. His tone seemed as grim as a robot's voice could be. Lance could hear a laser being fired on Octus' end of the connection.

"Ilana, are you there?" he asked, hoping to change the subject to the fight at hand.

"I'm near Octus, Lance. It's some kind of…giant statue. Of Modula. It's huge and made of stone, and it just shoots lasers in front of it."

"Please tell me it's not on the road…"

"It is."

"Crap."

The trio regrouped and formed Titan. The giant robot staggered a bit as it walked but managed to keep its footing.

"We're not all concentrating," Ilana warned. "What's up with you two?"

"Kimmy…" It was the only thing Octus was willing to say.

"Are you ok, Octus?" she asked.

"He's fine," Lance insisted. "We've got a Mutradi to kill."

"I was asking him! And it's more like a giant statue."

"Whatever, we'll deal with it later."

The giant statue of Modula fired another thin blue laser, tearing up the middle of the road. Cars swerved to try and avoid it but were forced to pull over before reaching the statue. One driver wasn't so lucky and was about to hit the pedestal of the statue before Titan caught the car with its hand between laser blasts. Titan had just placed the car safely on the side of the road when the statue shot another laser. Titan shuddered, but the laser couldn't bring it down. The beam disappeared after just ten seconds of sustained firing.

"Shielding reduced, 20 percent," Octus reported.

"Well, let's kill this thing!" Lance declared. "We can't just sit here directing traffic!" Titan punched the statue in its face several times, but to no effect. Evidently the material was fairly solid. When the face of the statue began to glow blue again, Titan removed its fist. More punches and kicks made a few dents, but they were tiny.

"What kind of material is this?" Lance asked. "It's incredibly durable. More so than any mineral I can think of on Galaluna."

"Let's try the Sonic Boomerang," Ilana suggested. "Maybe force, not mass, or strength, is the key to breaking it. What do you think, Octus?"

"Yes. It is optimal." He gave no other response.

"I take it that's a yes, then?" Ilana asked as she activated the boomerang. Titan flew up to get a good angle on the throw and hurled the weapon straight at the head of the statue. The boomerang resisted the laser and beheaded the statue, slicing right through the neck and causing the head to topple backwards onto the road, opposite of the stopped cars. Titan caught the boomerang as it came back, and it vanished in a flash of light. With the boomerang withdrawn, Titan flew up a bit more to aim its Alpha Cannon into the statue's exposed neck to destroy it.

"Wait a minute, there's something in there!" Ilana told the others. "It's some kind of metal and the end of a laser cannon. Probably where the lasers were coming from. But it looks kind of shiny, but it's so dark in there it's hard to tell."

"We don't have time to look at sparkles!" Lance shouted. "Alpha Cannon, fire!" Titan dramatically raised its morphed arm and fired a powerful blast into the statue to destroy it, scattering its pieces around a bit. The road was mostly fine, save for where the Alpha Cannon had hit, which left a deep crater.

"You know, we need to stop leaving all of this destruction everywhere," Ilana suggested. "Maybe next time we just pick up the statue and destroy it in mid-air, over Lake Sherman?"

"Next time we probably won't be dealing with a statue," Lance pointed out.

"Shielding reduced by 10 percent," Octus interrupted. "Remaining shielding at 70 percent."

"But we've already destroyed the statue!" Ilana reminded him. "It was weak to begin with. Usually our shields get knocked down by about half, or worse, with a few hits."

"I know," Octus said. "I was just reporting the facts."

Sure, fine," Lance said. "Let's just go home and be done with all of this. It's getting late and I have to go work out, for real this time."

"What do you mean, 'for real'?" Ilana asked.

"Oh. I had to disguise myself as Brandon with Octus' holograms. It got her out of danger."

"Oh, that's…oh, no."

"What?"

"Brandon's work out day is this day of the week," Ilana explained. "Jason goes to the gym on the same day, plus some intermittent days. He'd know if Brandon was there because he always starts after Brandon leaves."

"What? Why? How do you even know all that?"

"We're close, that's all. He trusts me. The results are…promising."

"Oh, please. Jason couldn't bench-press our heads if you chopped them off and hung them on opposite ends of a bar."

"…I don't like having to picture that. And the point is, he'd run into Brandon later today anyway, and…"

. . . . . .

"How did you get here from Kimmy's car so fast?" Jason asked Brandon. He was already at the gym, eager to fulfill his suspicions about Brandon suddenly appearing. "Your car was nowhere near the crater where the bridge was."

"Why would I be there?" Brandon asked. "She hates my guts. What kind of crazy adventure did you two get into? Any lip and tongue action?" he added with a chuckle.

"No, she kidnapped me and my friends and tried to track down the Lunises."

"Even better! Well, the kidnapping part. Not the family following. Why would Lance beat you up, anyway?"

"Oh, that? That wasn't me. And it wasn't you over at the bridge crater, either, right?"

"I'm telling you, I was nowhere near there! I don't even know how you got from there to the gym so fast!"

"I took a taxi. Now…if you were nowhere near Kimmy and I saw a fake Brandon..." Brandon immediately called Kimmy to explain the situation.

"Brandon, glad you called," she answered. "We need to talk."

"Whatever psycho that was that was with you at the bridge crater, that wasn't me!" he insisted. "Kimmy, don't take anything that guy's offering! He's probably sick in the head if he wanted to dress up like me!"

"That wasn't you?! That makes sense! You'd _never_ jog with a shirt on. Not when it's warm. _Or_ use a sweet tone with me! What's gotten into you?"

"Nothing, like I said, there's some creep going around!" Brandon cried. He grabbed Jason by the shoulder and dragged him out of the gym with him.

"Wait, I need to hit the treadmill, at least!" he protested.

"It can wait, little man. You're coming with me and telling me everything you and she know about this crazy guy. Someone's messing with my girl—my ex girl, sure, but I'm not going to take this lying down!" As they were in the parking lot heading back to Brandon's car, Mark and Gregory appeared.

"I knew you'd be here!" Mark declared. "Listen, Jason, before Brandon abducts you or whatever, I just want you to know that we saw a purple robot fly off after Kimmy stopped her car!"

"What purple robot?" Kimmy asked. She had just pulled up and had her window rolled down. Everyone instinctively looked at Jason, assuming that he would know what was going on.

"Listen, let's just get back to my house," he suggested. "I'll drive us all. I can explain everything better there. I think I know who's behind this."

"And that's why you're all coming with us instead," said a man. He had gray hair and was wearing a trench coat and hat. Dark glasses that looked too strange to be sunglasses hid his eyes.

"You must be the creep!" Brandon guessed. Fury raged in his eyes as he rushed at the man, hoping to teach him a lesson. But Solomon was ready and effortlessly sidestepped out of the way, kicking Brandon in the side with enough force to knock him down. He withdrew a gun from his coat pocket and shot him with a tranquilizer dart.

"Now," he asked the group as men in strange red uniforms appeared from behind other cars. "Are the rest of you more willing to come with us? We won't harm you if you cooperate."

. . . . . .

Titan, meanwhile, was trying to fly home, but its jets seemed to be sputtering.

"What's wrong with our flight pattern?" Lance wondered aloud.

"Jet propulsion failing," Octus reported. As Titan flew over a wooded area, the jets gave out completely, leaving Titan to fall to the ground. When it did, the impact was great enough to forcibly split the group into three.

"Jet propulsion offline," Octus reported, once the three had come to in their individual robotic armor.

"Yeah, we know," Ilana said. "Octus, you're regressing into this…robot. What's the matter?"

"I am a machine;" Octus insisted. "Is there some other way I should function? Also, Titan's internal machinery has been infected with a virus. We'll need to go to G3 to have it fixed. Edward likely has an anti-virus program which can pull through for us that I will download, but until then, forming Titan is not optimal."

"Can we at least try?" Lance asked.

Octus sighed; he rarely did something like that. "If you insist."

They tried. They failed.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Kimmy found herself lying on a cold, metal floor. Scanning her bare surroundings, she noticed everyone else who had been with her when the guy in the trenchcoat had appeared. Their bodies had all been placed hapharzardly on the floor, but she didn't see any apparent injuries on any of them.

Outside the cell there was a darkened, silver wall. It was eerie how spotless it was, as if it and this whole facility—wherever they were—was brand new. Or, she thought, ageless. Their cell was blocked by a yellow-green window. Kimmy rose to touch it, terrified yet curious. Nothing happened; it felt like a sheet of glass, albeit warmer than she expected.

Turning to the others, Kimmy wondered what to do. The fact that she was in an unfamiliar place with four guys and no way to escape or get help scared her, but with so few options the only thing she had left was to figure out what was going on and see if there was a way to get to the bottom of this.

Timidly she extended her hand to Jason to wake him up. Her fingers trembled as she wiggled his head. She didn't want to wake anyone else up just yet, especially Brandon; there was no telling what he would do.

Jason's eyelids fluttered and he awoke. "Kimmy?" he asked.

"Yes, it's me, not some alien or clone!" she rasped. "Listen, they've put us in this cell together. How do we get out? What do you know about these people?"

"I-I-I—don't know," he stammered. Kimmy clasped his hand; he relaxed when he saw she wasn't mad at him, just hoping to find out everything she could. "But I can tell you this: those guys, they captured us because they have something to do with the Lunises. Ilana…she's the golden robot. All of them are the robots." She stifled a gasp.

"Is that who they really are?" she asked with distress. "I mean, are they robots, really? Or are those just, like, suits or something?"

"No," he said. "At least, I don't think so. I think it's kind of like a mech-suit. But they did say they're Titan. Ilana said it was their duty to 'protect the Earth'."

"Why would she say that?"

"I don't know, it's just what she told me. She was really upset and crying when I confronted her about this. I…I still don't know what to do about it, honestly. I just wanted to lie low, until all this happened."

"The way she said it," Kimmy pressed. "Was it, like…?"

"Like what?"

"Never mind. I just don't like the looks of this place. Look at how that wall is stainless."

"So? Maybe they just clean really well."

"Or maybe it's made out of some kind of new material."

"A material can't be 'new'. We discover it or synthesize it. That doesn't mean it couldn't have existed prior. Like concrete: the ancient Romans…"

"I don't care! What I'm saying is that…well, we don't know much about these people, do we? Even though we're both dating a Lunis."

"What makes you think these guys are with the Lunises?"

"I just have a gut feeling about it. Hard to explain," Kimmy replied.

"Well, what do we do now?" Jason asked.

Kimmy shrugged. "What else do you know?"

"They tried really hard to keep all of this a secret. I guess it was because of this place. They…I guess they failed, didn't they? They got us tangled up in this mess."

Kimmy's facial expressions changed and she turned away from Jason. He tapped her shoulder lightly. "What's wrong?"

"I…I'm scared," Kimmy whispered, beginning to cry. "I don't know if we'll make it out of this. These people…what if they're against us? Against the Lunises? They could kill us."

"No." He touched her shoulder and leaned in. "I don't think they'll do that. It…it won't happen. Just have faith, all right? We'll get out of here alive. They can't kill us. Well, maybe they can, technically, but they won't actually go through with it. Not if they have any ounce of humanity in them. And that guy in the outfit was definitely a human."

Kimmy turned back around and hugged Jason. All she wanted now was that simple reassurance that everything would be all right. She wondered if that remark about concrete was something Newton would have said…

"Oooh, boy! Lucky guy, Jason!" Mark cried. The others were all awake now.

. . . . . .

"The damage is extensive, but only through Octus' Titan-related components," Edward remarked.

"Tell us something we don't know," Lance murmured.

Ilana shushed him. "Keep it to yourself if you're mad!" she scolded.

"I trust that my essential programs and functions are all in working order?" Octus asked. He all of his "arms" were retracted into his body, and the gel bubble usually surrounding him had disappeared for now, giving Edward full access to his hardware as well as his software.

"Yes, but forming Titan is impossible," Edward explained. "The whole Sym-Bionic Titan apparatus is essentially a computer program designed for combat and that utilizes hardware to form weapons and the whole giant robot in the first place. And like every computer, it can be tampered with."

"Again…tell us what we don't know," Lance murmured again.

"I can develop an anti-virus program to specifically target this," Edward went on, "But it will take me a while. A day or so should be enough time. This is a very specialized virus, seeing as how it affects Titan and related programs only. I have replicates of Titan's programming so I can use it to test the anti-virus, but it might still take a while due to the manner in which of all of this sort of work is typically conducted."

"What about anything relevant to us?" Lance asked aloud, tapping his foot impatiently. Edward ignored him, continuing to explain the details to Octus.

"Is there a specific course of action you would recommend?" Octus asked.

"I'd prefer it if you specifically would stay here, but if that jeopardizes your mission then I understand if you'd rather not."

Ranaron burst through the room, trying to maintain his composure as he made his announcement: "Dr. Lunis—"

"—Please, Ranaron. Just call me Edward. I don't have any use for pleasantries."

"Very well. Listen, Edward, Solomon's mission was successful. The targets were all apprehended safely and they're awaiting interrogation as we speak!"

"Targets?" Ilana asked nervously. "Who did Solomon capture?"

Ranaron twiddled his fingers awkwardly. "Well…it seems you were never informed. Some of your…associates were deemed security threats. They were close to compromising your identities, so Solomon preemptively captured them. We've detained them in the brig."

"Which associates?" Ilana pressed. "Why would Solomon do this without telling us?"

"I can answer the first question, but not the second. It was Jason—"

"Oh, no, Jason!" Ilana rushed out of the room to go find him.

"…And Kimmy, Mark, Gregory, and Brandon," Ranaron finished. "I was hoping she would have at least stayed to let me finish giving out the names."

"And not Kristin?" Lance asked.

"No. She was not with the others at the time, and she is little connection with the others. We are monitoring her, however, in case the situation should change."

Lance turned to face his father, his face fixed in a snarl. "Explain this."

"We were doing what we deemed was best," Edward said. "We can wipe their memories of specific details and put them back on the surface with you shortly."

"If Kimmy is detained, I wish to see her," Octus told Edward. "Immediately!"

"Hold on," Edward insisted. "Let me re-configure you so that your hologram matrix still works."

"Negative. I wish to see Kimmy. If I have to see her as I am now, so be it."

"Octus, what are you doing?!" Lance demanded. "This is ridiculous! Your girlfriend isn't in danger. G3 was just trying to help us!"

Octus, however, shook his body as it laid on Edward's examination table and shifted some parts of himself around. He was able to float again and left the room.

"Octus, wait!" Lance called. He growled when he realized Octus was gone and he had little hope of catching him. He looked at his father again.

"I never thought of you, of all people, would defend my decision," Edward remarked. "I only plan on a basic, targeted memory wipe. They'll remember all of you, but not the details surrounding your identities. Tampering with the human brain is not the kind of work I enjoy, but it might be necessary, in this case. I hope you understand."

"I agree with you. I'm glad I mean so much to you that you decided not to bother Kristin. Your…neglect means a lot."

"My negligence with capturing her or my alleged negligence towards you?"

"Both."

Edward sighed. "One day, my son, I think you'll understand. I didn't want…I mean, I didn't _mean_ for things to be this way. If I had known Modula's true nature, all of this would never have happened. This whole mess is all my fault. Just, please, son, give me a chance to fix it."

Lance sat down on the operating table with a sigh. He looked into his father's face and saw shame and disappointment in his eyes. Lance normally never bothered to "read" people like this, and he didn't think he was especially good at it. But Edward was sincere; that much he knew.

He couldn't get himself to say it. He couldn't say the words, not just yet. He didn't want to take himself that low. He could pretend to be Brandon, but he could never tell his father he was sorry. So he got up and hugged him instead.

"Ranaron, if you would excuse yourself for a moment?" Edward asked. Ranaron nodded and silently left the room.

. . . . . .

Ilana arrived at the cell where all of the prisoners were being held. She came just in time to see Brandon banging his fists on the forcefield and shouting threats at Solomon, who was sitting calmly on a stool, evidently having attempted some sort of interrogation. Other G3 troops were there, and armed.

"Solomon, let them go!" she demanded.

"It's not that simple. You wanted damage control, and this is our most effective means."

"So does this mean that the NASA deal is off the table?" Gregory asked. "I was kind of hoping you guys were serious."

"We're technically classified as a top-secret NGO," Solomon explained. "If the circumstances were different, I'd see no reason why I wouldn't arrange that for you. But right now you're all being detained here."

"Ilana, you're here! Thank God!" Jason cried, pressing himself up to the force field of the cell. "You're with these guys, right? Tell them we don't know a thing! I mean, I know a few things, but we're not dangerous, right? Please, Ilana, get us out of here!"

Ilana turned to Solomon with disgust. This reminded her of the time they had been captured by G3: They had been given similar treatment, but G3 at least had had a plausible reason then. Now they were detaining innocent bystanders, Earthlings with no connection to Modula or the Mutradi.

"Let them go. Now." He words were firm and clear. "I _will_ see to it that you are disciplined for this, and if not by Edward, then by the Courts of Justice all the way in-!"

"NO!" Solomon leaped forward to cover her mouth. "Sedate her! If we have to implement an extra memory wipe I'll do it myself to keep these people safe!" One of the G3 soldiers withdrew a syringe from a pocket in his uniform, but Ilana kneed the soldier in the stomach and caused him to drop the syringe. She crushed it with her shoe, the liquid spilling on the floor. Kimmy watched and couldn't help but thinking that in the midst of all this chaos, the place wasn't spotless anymore. It was almost symbolic.

"I'm tired of hiding who I am, Solomon!" Ilana exclaimed defiantly. "It was fine for a while, but now it's gotten to the point where you, the person that is supposed to protect us from danger, is endangering my friends! I don't want you wiping anyone's memories. I can't deny who I am anymore. It's hurt these people already, and it will do even further damage to G3, should something happen and they remember everything again."

"I'm doing what Edward ordered!" Solomon insisted. "These kinds of decisions aren't left up to symbolic figureheads to decide!"

"Figurehead?" Jason asked. "Ilana…do you really want to do this?" She turned to him with a bold, proud look on her face. Ilana felt lightyears away, standing before a crowd of Modula and his hordes of Mutradi soldiers. This, she decided, was what she wanted to do when she met them, right before reclaiming her planet for her people.

"I am Princess Ilana Corliana Ruhammius, Duchess of Trioptica, Duchess of Chromatica, Duchess of Lunaris, Duchess of Bional, Countess of Chrysanthemum, Countess of Agapeia, Baroness of Luminon, and heir apparent to the throne of the Kingdom and Planet of Galaluna!"

"What?" Jason asked, scratching his head. She only gave a smile in response.

"I am the daughter of King Lucius of Galaluna. A coup waged against the royal family occurred a little over a year ago that plunged our planet into civil war. My father sent me to Earth, one of the few habitable planets our astronomers know of, in order to keep me safe during the conflict. Lance—"

"SEDATE HER!" Solomon ordered, but was promptly electrocuted. Octus appeared, staying silent and out of the field of vision from the prisoners.

"Lance, a Corporal in the Royal Galalunan Military Marine Corps, was assigned to protect me, as well as Octus, a robot created by his late father, the brilliant scientist named Edward. Edward invented both the Rift Gate, a wormhole that served as a means of travel to this planet—"

"I TOLD YOU!" Mark exclaimed, pointing at Gregory. "I TOLD you it was possible!"

"Ok, ok, I give! We can deal with that later."

"-Edward also invented sets of combat armor stored in our watches. Lance has the Manus armor, the standard unit of our army. I possess the Corus, a special design with more defensive capabilities. Combined with Octus, we form the Sym-Bionic Titan, the giant robot that has been defending Sherman, Illinois, this whole time! We'll return home as soon as conditions on Galaluna are stable."

All of the Earth-inhabiting humans in the room were stunned by Ilana's speech. Finally, Kimmy spoke up:

"This is all ridiculous!" she shrieked. "I don't know why you have to make up this insane story just to hide who you really are! Ilana, if you care so much about defending the Earth, where were you when we were captured by these freaks? I know what you really are: a psychopath with some grand delusion of being a hero! You set all this up just to make a dumb speech so we'd fawn all over you. I've heard of payback, and I can understand if maybe you're mad at me for the way I treated you back when the sludge monsters showed up at school, but this is insane!" Tears welled up in her eyes again. "Ilana, _why_ did you do this? Who _are_ these people, really? Who are _you_?"

"We are who she says we are," came a deep, inhuman voice.

"What? Who said that?!" Kimmy shut her eyes. Now she knew what was going on: This wasn't just some crazy plan on Ilana's part. This guy—her father, some creep like Brandon had suggested this Solomon guy was earlier, or some other psycho—was the mastermind behind all this. She was just a puppet on his strings, and for some unexplainable reason she and the boys in her cell were all their new playthings.

How did Newton factor into this? Either he was dead, or worse, he was the source of the voice. She didn't want to find out. She didn't want any of this. She shut her eyes, hoping this was a bad dream and pleading with whatever God there was out there for her to wake up from this nightmare.

"Go away!" she cried. "Go away! ALL OF YOU! Just let me go! Do whatever you want and leave me alone!" she knelt down on the floor and wept. Brandon tried to console her, but she slapped his hand away when she felt it.

"You sick people are going to pay for this, do you hear me?!" Brandon shouted. "I'll figure out where this place is and I'll call the cops. I won't rest until you people are rotting in prison for this! Prison might be too nice for you, but I will personally make sure it's a living hell for you in there!"

Now it was Ilana's turn to be stunned. She had expected them to believe her. But she realized that these Earthlings didn't understand monarchy, far-flung worlds, alien technology, or anything she had just said to them. How could they have respect for something if they weren't even sure it existed?

"Still think a memory wipe would be a bad idea?" Solomon asked as he stood to his feet. Ilana desperately looked at Jason.

"Please…Jason…" Her boyfriend trembled and clenched his fists to hide his fear.

"Solomon," he asked calmly. "We're friends. We want the best for this Galaluna place, and Earth, too. I believe Ilana. I don't know if that puts me on your enemies' list or whatever, but I promise you, I'd never do anything to hurt her. I'd like Sherman to be safe, and for that to happen, at least for now, we need Titan. Don't keep them bogged down by having us as prisoners. Or are you really going to just ignore a princess?"

A voice came over an intercom. "Solomon, sedate the prisoners. I've established the anti-virus program and while the tests are being run we need to proceed with the memory wipe. Tell Ilana and Octus to stand down." Solomon snatched a device from one of the G3 soldiers to reply.

"With all due respect sir, I cannot comply with that order. These people are civilians. Earth civilians. I can't emulate General Steel—heck, I don't even think _he_ would do something like this if he could. Edward, where are your ethics? These people are practically children, and we're going to conduct an experiment that's barely been utilized in the field all because they had a few leads…and because Ilana and Octus wanted to be honest with them."

"This isn't just my idea, Solomon. Lance wants this, too. Are you questioning my orders, and the will of my son?"

"No; I'm just _challenging_ your orders. And you can tell Lance that I know he would think differently if Kristin was in this same situation. I know he's not as cold and detached as he likes to pretend he is."

A pause, and then the force fields lowered. The newly-freed prisoners quickly left their cell. Brandon yelled and lunged at Solomon, but he was held down by the G3 troops until he was once again sedated.

"Send a pod to the surface for this one," Solomon ordered the troops.

"Will he be all right?" Kimmy asked. "I don't know what he'll do once he wakes up."

"If he's ever a threat, just call us," Solomon instructed. "Now, Mark, Gregory, would you like to see a tour of the airship?"

"We're in an AIRSHIP!?" they both exclaimed. "Wait, what about Ilana?" Mark asked. "Was all that crazy stuff true?" She blushed and nodded, annoyed at herself for being so dramatic then.

"Wow. I just…whoa," Gregory muttered. "I knew there was something special about you. I kept telling Mark but I think there were times he didn't believe me."

"What do you mean, I did believe you!" Mark insisted. "The implications of extraterrestrial life are astonishing! For one thing, we don't have to desperately search anymore for alien life!"

"Wasn't that kind of obvious when all of the giant monsters started showing up?"

"Well, yeah, but now it's undeniable."

"And do you want to see Galalunan tech?" Solomon asked them. "Pretty much everything in the ship was designed by Edward, based on his own planet's ships." The boys rushed off with Solomon to get a tour of the airship. Jason lingered behind for a bit, awkwardly looking staring down.

"I always kind of figured there was something special about you," Jason remarked. "You were the first person outside of my circle of friends that actually listened when I talked about stars and stuff. But if I had known who you really were, I don't know if I'd have even had the courage to say hi. Then again, if I had known who you were…"

"Jason," she said, clasping his hand. "It's ok. I don't really know what the future holds for me now…but I'm just so glad you still accepted me for all this." They shared a hug, but Ilana went a bit farther and gave Jason a kiss on the cheek.

"Well…" he said, still awkward as ever. "You are a human, right? I mean, I'd still like you either way, but—"

"—Yes, Jason. I'm human," she said. He breathed a sigh of relief.

"What about…what about Newton?" Kimmy asked, her voice barely above a whisper. "Where is he?" Ilana and Jason glared at her.

"Please, you're so shallow you were convinced he was trying to deceive you from the beginning!" Jason insisted. "And don't even get me started on how you wanted to sell us out to these guys!"

"Fine, be that way!" Kimmy retorted weakly. "I'll just walk off this crazy airship myself!"

"Halt," the disembodied voice said. She could tell it was somewhere in the room above her, but the lack of windows made the room too dark, particularly the ceiling. Because the holding cells' force fields were all off now, that just made things even worse. The whole hallway was only lit by a series of small lights better suited for guidance than seeing far away.

She kept walking, and the voice continued, evidently following her. "There are urgent matters that need to be discussed with you."

"I don't care, I'm getting out of here one way or another!"

"I order you to stop, for your own safety and well-being!"

"Shut up, stupid robot!"

"Kimberly Mysner, do not force me to resort to restraining you!"

"GO AWAY!" She cried once more, running as fast as she could down the corridor. She didn't care who she ran into, she didn't care where she ended up, only that this nightmare would end.

Then…

"Kimmy."

She slowed her pace.

"An Isoceles triangle has at least two congruent sides…" Now she was hearing hallucinations. The voice had spoken as Newton, obviously attempting to toy with her mind. Newton was gone, she decided; just a figment of its imagination, and her reality, along with the whole "alien princess" schtick Ilana was going through. What else could this place be but a brainwashing facility—and a poorly staffed one, at that?

"I need to use the bathroom."

She ran faster, hoping that there was some way to get past this psychological torture.

"Muffincup."

It knew everything. The whole thing was an illusion.

"You don't have to be stupid because society says so."

She leaned against the wall, sobbing once more. He was gone. They were gone. Everyone and everything was gone. All that was left was this nightmare, obviously serving as some sort of punishment for her horrid sins.

She made out a light approaching from behind her, and she thought back at everything wrong she had done in her life. The people she had teased, the social exclusion, the clique she had struggled to maintain, all of her anti-social behavior, her petty lust for cute boys, the way she had tried to seduce Newton into doing her homework, everything—all of the sins piled up. And this was Hell.

She shut her eyes, but she could still feel the warmth of its light. It felt comforting, despite the fact that this thing was torturing her psychologically.

"My holographic matrix is disabled, Kimmy. I can't be Newton. I—I don't _want_ to be Newton right now. I want you to know who I have been all this time. And I want you to know that nothing has changed about my perception of you. I love you, Kimmy."

"Are you…?" she couldn't bring herself to finish the question.

"Yes. I am Newton. And I am Octus. I am a machine. I did not expect to experience human emotions in this manner. I was not created for such things. But I suppose that comes with sentience."

"It all…" Kimmy started. She thought back to all of the memorable moments she could think of with Octus. It all made sense. It was now more plausible to her than anything else. Had she been in denial all along?

"Kimmy, your emotional readings are incredibly erratic. My suggestion may cause a spike in blood pressure and stress levels, but if you can endure that, I think you can be at peace with this…unfortunate reality."

"I miss the old you, Newton."

"Look at me, Kimmy."

She opened them. And there it—he—stood—or floated, rather—before her.

Octus.

 **AN: Well, now they know. Well, some of them do. The story isn't quite over yet, but there should be 1-2 more chapters.**

 **I would especially like feedback on this chapter. I enjoyed writing something so "serious".**


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Octus waited for Kimmy to finish crying. He diverted power to his auditory receptors and recorded the sound of her sobs to store later in his memory banks. It hurt, but he didn't want to forget any of this. Watching her finally discover the truth about him was almost like watching a movie or viewing a piece of artwork; it felt like another world, like he wasn't really there. And just like a particularly sad movie or artwork, he felt almost detached from it. It was the only thing he could do to cope with it. Before all this, he hadn't even known he could feel this detached.

He watched as all of the charts that normally shot up on his readings when he scanned an upset person began to return to normal. Kimmy herself, of course, was still hurt.

"Is it really you?" she asked. Octus floated closer so that she could have reached out and touched him if she wanted.

"Yes." They remained silent for some time. Octus could hear Ilana raising her voice in protest. Then came Lance's voice, angry as usual. He shouted a few things that might have been directed at him, but he didn't care.

It seemed like ages had passed when she finally reached out to touch him. One delicate, clean hand spread out its fingers on his gel, now back in the shape of a sphere.

"I had no idea," she breathed. "All this time, I thought you were a human. A dork, maybe, and a little awkward, but I thought that was just who you were."

"It is who I am," he explained. "The things I said to you, the feelings I expressed towards you—none of them were lies."

"Not even the bathroom thing?"

"Well, that was a lie, actually. But that was the only one. I needed a cover story." She didn't smile at that quip.

"When had you planned on telling me this?"

"I had hoped you would never know. I lost my foresight in this matter. I think my infatuation prevented me from seeing how this relationship would work out."

She touched his bubble with her other hand, possibly to get a feel for what the gel was made out of. "I think I was the same way. I didn't stop to think about what it would do to my image—I mean, I'm popular and you're a nerd—but I guess I didn't care what other people thought then."

"The feeling is mutual."

She smiled this time and wrapped her arms around him. "Get those wires out again. I want to hug you—the real you."

"Don't you hate me?"

"I can't. I just want to feel the real you, Newton. Octus, I mean."

He took out his wires again until he had a humanoid shape and embraced her, just as she had asked.

"A little cold…but soft," she declared. "And very gentle."

"Thank you." She squeezed tighter and asked:

"What do we do now? What happens to us?"

"I don't know. We can delay our decision. We can delay it for as long as we want to. Wouldn't you much rather be here, with me, in my arms?" Octus didn't care how ridiculous he may have sounded to everyone else—only Kimmy mattered right now.

But before she could answer, the Rift Gate opened, and he realized what he needed to do.

. . . . . . .

The Rift Gate portal opened low to the ground this time to ensure that its latest traveler wouldn't get hurt in the fall. An oversized, bipedal reptile landed on its feet in the downtown part of Sherman. Its feet made a huge crater at an intersection, crushing a car that had been unfortunate enough to be driving underneath it. The Mutradi looked like a cross between a T-Rex and a Velociraptor, only it was the size of Titan. Its skin was dark red and its arms were thick and went down to its knees, unlike the dinosaurs it resembled. It sniffed the air with its snout and smelled something metallic far away. It decided to pay it no mind and focused its attention on the tiny creatures running around on the ground.

Its inedible prey would turn up eventually if it had some appetizers first to show it meant business.

. . . . . . . .

"What? No!" Kimmy screamed once Octus had told her the news. "You can't just leave me, not again! Not after I _just_ had this all figured out!" She didn't seem to care that the real reason he had left her all those times was because an interspatial wormhole would periodically appear in space near Earth.

"Would you rather see Sherman in ruins?" he asked. "I need to go. Stay here on the airship where you're safe." But Kimmy grabbed ahold of him as he tried to float off to get back to Lance and Ilana. She even went so far as to stick her hand through his gel and grab a part of him.

"It can wait, it can wait, I swear it can wait!" her voice was frantic and a quick scan showed that her brainwaves weren't normal.

"If you can get her off of you," Lance told him, "We'll be waiting out on the deck. I can't believe you thought this was a good idea. And you, Ilana…"

"No." she said firmly. "I'm not debating this with you anymore. Let's just get outside and do what we need to do." He said nothing else.

Octus knew they were angry about something, but he hadn't been paying attention. Ilana's bold declaration had probably caused her to argue with Lance about this. For his part, he still felt empty, like it was all a dream. There was just too many things to react emotionally to, and as a robot it wasn't his forte. "Initiating," he said dryly.

"We know what to do," Lance reminded him. "Get bigger already."

A roar was heard from below them. It was faint, but it sounded unearthly—almost demonic.

"Octus!" Ilana urged.

"Right," Titan formed as usual, rocketing into the sky. It seemed to be moving at a slower pace than usual.

"Where's the Mutradi?" Lance asked Octus.

"It's…around."

"Octus, what in the name of Tarax has gotten into you?!"

"My—some of Titan's systems are disabled. I can't get any of our weapons' programs running, and the limb movements are functioning at roughly 50%".

"Then what are we in the air for?!"

"I didn't realize this until we booted up Titan. It seems to mainly be programs related to Titan."

"What do we do, Octus?" Ilana asked.

They had approached the reptilian Mutradi, with Titan hovering horizontally in place just out of its reach. Its arms and legs were spread in the same position they were in when it had taken off from the airship. The Mutradi sniffed the air to study the machine. It had expected something more alive.

"Get the sword running!" Lance cried. "Get us on the ground, Octus! Do something!"

"All Titan systems offline." Octus sounded as if he was lightyears away. Titan suddenly dropped to the ground, its limbs still spread-eagled. When it landed it seemed like it had survived the shock of the impact, but the T-Rex alien approached it.

 _It's weakened,_ a voice said in its head. _Kill it._

The T-Rex gave an energetic howl and kicked Titan's head, watching as the metal began to get more and more dented with each blow.

"It's going to rip our head off if we don't do something!" Ilana cried.

"I know." Ilana felt frozen with shock.

"Dammit, Octus!" Lance screamed. "I'm not going to die like this! If you won't do anything, I will!" Lance tried getting Titan to move on its own. He succeeded in getting its limbs to twitch, but it wasn't enough to get out of the way of the T-Rex. Now the Mutradi had stepped onto Titan's back.

"Un-form Titan!" Ilana suggested. "If we do it together, Lance, we might be able to get out of this!"

"Retreat? No! We'll be fine if we can just get things working again! Come on, Titan, work! Initiating Sym-Bionic Sword! Shield! Cosmic Bow! Sonic Boomerang! Cronus Chain! Neuron Missiles? Anything? Nothing! Dammit, why won't you work! This whole thing was stupid and poorly designed!"

"I just want to go home…" Ilana muttered. The T-Rex had closed its jaws around Titan's head; none of them could see anything.

"I'm sorry, you two…" Octus spoke up. "I should never have hurt Kimmy, or gotten anyone else involved. I'm sorry."

"Nice going, Dad!" Lance cried. "You're just going to let us die out here, aren't you? Back to the drawing board, huh? You can always clone yourself to make another son! Thanks for nothing!"

"I shouldn't have hurt you, Ilana…" Octus' voice trailed off. He and Lance seemed to be losing their minds, rambling about their unfortunate circumstances. Ilana was forced to listen in silence. She had nothing to add to this conversation. She was at peace with herself, despite the chaos raging around her.

Her view of Octus and Lance, and that of her own unconscious body, began to fade. Static flickered in the darkness at the same time she could hear what sounded like metal being crushed.

"I want to go home!" she cried. She didn't think about her choice of words—it was the end, after all. "Galaluna! Let me see it…please."

She screamed as the dinosaur Mutradi's jaws came together, and something snapped. There was nothing after that.

. . . . . .

She awoke, feeling wind brush against her cheek. She opened her eyes and saw clouds. Was this Heaven, the place that some humans talked about? Why was the ground so cold and hard, then?

"Ilana!" she jumped up, hearing Lance's voice. She saw now that she was back on the G3 airship, with Lance and Octus. She hugged him and felt safe in his arms. It only lasted about a second before Lance released her from his grip and stepped back.

"I don't know how we got back here, but I think you did something," he said. "There's so much about Titan that we don't know yet."

"I believe it was a physical back-up program," Octus suggested. The teens turned to him, confused and still wary, given what had just transpired. "Most computers have back-up systems to store files in case they crash," Octus explained. "Titan's array of weapons and abilities are all stored within its software programs. It would make sense for Titan, being a machine like myself, to have the ability to revert to a 'back-up' incarnation of itself. I have done some calculations and concluded that because of Ilana's desperate desire to return home, Titan transported us to the location we were right before we last formed Titan. It 'backed us up' as if we were files within the machinery itself."

"But…we're not, right?" Lance asked. "We didn't go back in time or anything, did we?"

"No. I have checked for the current atomic time. It does not match what it was before we formed Titan. But we ourselves are in the exact same positions in space that we stood in before forming Titan."

Just then, Edward appeared from below deck. "It works!" he cried. "I had my doubts, but it actually worked! The back-up system was designed to be accessed only by the Heart—you, Ilana, in the event that other systems were compromised. Titan is still infected with that virus, since it was there before the backup, but you're all here, all safe. Titan will likely malfunction again, so it's best for you three to wait here. I'll keep working on that anti-virus, but until then it's not safe to go out and fight again."

"So, we just wait now?" Ilana asked. She began to walk back to below the deck, and Octus followed her.

"And Lance?" Edward asked as Lance started to join them. He turned around and glanced downward.

"Yeah?"

"I was there, watching you, the whole time. Our airship had been speeding towards your location. Even if the Mutradi had managed to bite off Titan's head, you would have made it. I'd make sure of it."

"Did you hear what I said?"

"What did you say?"

"Nothing."

 **AN: Yes, Lance can say "bad" words. Just not too often or he becomes too edgy.**


End file.
